


To Play a Poor Hand Well

by thedevilchicken



Category: Firefly, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Crossover, F/M, Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2016-09-30
Packaged: 2018-08-18 18:40:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8171875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well. - Robert Louis Stevenson





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kerioth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kerioth/gifts).



Sometimes, it's like Leia's forgotten what Han used to do for a living. 

Sure, it wasn't a totally _honest_ living, but it was still a living and more than a whole bunch of people had, where he came from. He was always pretty good at it, too - not the best, okay, sure, not the _best_ , 'cause he's never known when to shut his smart mouth, or maybe he's known when he should but he's never known how to actually make himself do it - but he was pretty good. He and Chewie made enough to get by and sometimes a whole lot more than that if they weren't too fussy about the cargo...but mostly they were fussy about the cargo, at least when it really mattered. Chewie likes to say they were outlaws back then but not villains, not that too many people understand a word he says. Han likes to think that's true.

Sometimes, he says something or he does something or there's just a moment and who knows what is is that put the thought in her head, and then Leia looks at him like the princess she's almost always been and it's like she's wondering how she mistook a smuggler for a hero, or a straight-up criminal for a loveable rogue, and he kinda wonders that himself sometimes. She's not stuck-up, not most times, not like some of the women he's met, 'cause her parents didn't bring her up that way. But sometimes, just sometimes, it's like she's looking down on him from some kind of moral high iground if not some dumbass socio-economic one, and he just wants to say, _honey, I never lied to you about who I was_. Because he never did. He never has. 

Tonight's one of those nights when she looks at him like she's gotten complacent and let herself forget. Tonight's one of those nights because they just got word that _Serenity_ 's docked.

\---

They met in the cantina at Mos Eisley back when they were both pretty much still kids, relatively speaking. Han likes to think he's never really gotten old, and Chewie says he never has, relatively speaking. Wookiees live pretty long lives, though, so that's not exactly comforting.

Han was playing sabacc because he was always playing sabacc back then, though back then he was a real crappy player at the best of times. Or he was when he played it straight, at least, though _when he played it straight_ really amounted to _if he played it straight_ and it was a pretty big _if_ where Han was concerned. He didn't like to cheat at cards, or at least he told himself he didn't, except when the game was more about the cheating than it was about the cards. In Mos Eisley, like so many places, the game was who could cheat the best and not really sabacc at all. 

Han was playing sabacc with a Besalisk who made the table shake when he laughed, a Devaronian with real pointy horns like that was intimidating somehow when you'd seen Devaronians get drunk and dance half-naked on tabletops more than once in your life, and three hoity-toity Alderaanians who'd had to make a real unpleasant detour out past Tatooine when their ship's hyperdrive had taken a turn for the worse. And then in walked a Browncoat in first-class bloodstripes and well, that just got Han's hackles right up even though he'd been winning. The Empire had overrun the Independents a few years before then, everyone knew that, and the ones who'd made it out of the war alive but still wore the brown were really, _really_ bad for business. They were pretty much always on the run from the Empire and who - _who_ in their right mind - wanted Imperial troops showing up out there in Mos Eisley?

Then, of course, there was the fact the guy was wearing the stripes. If those stripes were really his and not just tacked on for show, that meant they meant something, and not just that the guy was Corellian and not from Alderaan or Coruscant or any other world where humans might've set up a shack and called it home. If they were his, they really _meant_ something. Han's stripes back then were second-class and he was catching the corner of one yellow bar in the line that ran down the outside of his pants leg with his thumbnail as he eyed the guy across the room. Han didn't like him, but it wasn't 'cause he felt somehow inferior to those damned red stripes. It wasn't 'cause he was jealous the guy had them, nope, nuh-uh. It was because Corellia was a core world and Corellians who'd fought for the Independents out on the Outer Rim made all Corellians look kinda suspicious in the Empire's eyes. He just didn't need that kind of heat in his line of work. Corellian Browncoats pissed him off.

But then, one of the holier-than-thou, stuck-up Alderaanians called Han a cheat and drew a blaster and that was great, that was all he needed at that precise moment when he wasn't paying close attention 'cause his attention was elsewhere. Seemed they hadn't gotten the memo about how card games were played in shady cantinas out on Tatooine and there Han was, caught with his proverbial pants down, though he guessed even if they'd been literally down it wouldn't've been the first time - there was that one time on Cloud City, two on Coruscant, probably more he was forgetting offhand. And the way that stuffed shirt from Alderaan with his shiny blaster he'd probably never fired in his life was waving it around, he wasn't gonna live to remember. 

But then, the next thing he knew, there was the Corellian Browncoat with his first-class bloodstripes holding a blaster to the crown of the pissy Alderaanian's head. 

"Don't you even think about it," he said, with an accent that was parsecs from Corellian. He glanced at the second Alderaanian and produced a second blaster from his second leather thigh holster. "You neither, or I swear I'll paint those cards with the insides of your buddy's fool head." 

He turned to Han, blasters still levelled. "Think you'd best be on your way," he said. 

Which was, of course, _of course_ , when the troopers walked in in their dumb white armor. The way the guy looked when he saw them, they all knew who the troopers had come there for; when they shouted, "Malcolm Reynolds!" that just confirmed it. 

Han looked at Mal. Mal looked at Han. Maybe it turned out the troopers weren't there for him, but the look on the Alderaanians' faces sure hadn't gotten any friendlier. 

"I think we'd both better get outta here," Han said. "Don't you?"

Mal smirked, amused. Han grinned. They ran. 

They ran and they escaped together. They kept on running for three years, together: running from the Empire, running their ill-conceived business, running their damn fool mouths. They did a lot of things that Han's not proud of, and a lot of things he is. Next to Chewie, Mal's maybe the best friend Han's ever had, or maybe he's the worst of all.

These days, either way, Han doesn't mind Corellian Browncoats anywhere near so much.

\---

Sometimes, it's like Leia forgot what he used to do. Sometimes, it's like Leia forgot who he still is, and for a moment she has no clue at all how she wound up with him, how things turned out like this, how the galaxy crumbled into something not even her strong will can hold together. But then the moment passes. Then, she smiles. 

"Colonel Reynolds," she says, and Mal stands to attention because these days they're all Browncoats when it comes down to it, all soldiers just like Mal's been since even before the war began, and Leia's about as high up on the military ladder as you can get before you fall right down the other side. She's always been important and wears it pretty easily. Mal's never gotten used to his rank, and Han knows it.

"General," Mal replies. And there's a moment then when it could go either way and Han knows it. They could tip into shop talk, about operational crap that Leia gets and Mal gets but Han's got no interest in getting at all, trade routes and blockades and troops and strategy, where they put their starships, where they fight their battles. Han gets bored pretty easily when they go off that way and winds up sitting there like some slack-jawed embarrassment while they talk. But tonight it doesn't go that way. 

"You boys go have fun," Leia says, and she gives Mal a conspiratorial wink, but that's as much for Han's benefit as it is for Mal's. Han smirks, amused. Mal grins, and Colonel Reynolds disappears so he's just Mal again. They've played the hands the galaxy's dealt them and they've played them well: just look at the two of them now, just look where they are, except in all the ways that matter they haven't changed at all.

Han knows there are sabacc cards in Mal's inside pocket. Han knows when they get to _Serenity_ Zoë's gonna frown at him 'cause she plays straight even though she knows they both cheat and Wash'll argue piloting over the table till Han's gotten riled enough to lose the hand because Wash likes it when his wife wins at cards. And River'll dance and give away all the cards they're holding while they pour the drinks and laugh 'cause it's not like the game itself really matters, and for a while it'll be like nothing else matters in the galaxy. For a while, it won't.

Sometimes, it's like the guy in the first-class bloodstripes that match his own knows him better than anyone else at all. Han knows in another life he and Chewie would've made their lives with Mal and Zoë and all the others. They'd've been just like a family. Maybe they are anyway.

Then he goes back to Leia, half-drunk, half-sad, but only till she wraps her arms around him. Then she'll ask how his night was and he'll tell her and she'll smile. Maybe he'll exaggerate. Maybe she'll know. Maybe she'll tease him, and then they'll go to bed.

Leia never forgets who he is, not really, not deep down, even when it's like she does. She's always known, from the moment they met. She loves him because of it, not in spite of it. Maybe, sometimes, the one who forgets that is him.

It's just sometimes what it takes to remind him is cheating at cards with Mal Reynolds.


End file.
